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I launched a new website last week: MyHeartDoc.org, a website for the Heart & Vascular Institute of Florida in Davenport, FL. The main feature of the site is the extensive documentation of heart conditions, symptoms, tests and procedures. I coded in a custom design and layout for the doctor and turned it around in a few weeks as a rush job.

David Mihm has put together a detailed infographic of the history of Google Places, from its beginning in March of 2004 as Google Local to the creation of the Google Place Page in October 2009 and the final re-branding of business listings to Google Places. In the timeline he also includes significant personnel changes at Google, product changes, changes to the look of Local/Maps/Places, news and the launch of other local/mobile products.

I’ve been working in Local Search on a daily basis since June of 2008 and consider myself an expert in the field. Even so, I’m still amazed by the changes and growth in that amount of time. I keep abreast of the news and blog about it here, but seeing it all in one place is very cool. As always, David Mihm has done a great job.

Here’s a small version of the graphic. For a full-sized version, click on it to go to the source:

We just launched another new website today: Liesels.com. In development since the end of August, it’s the single most complicated website that I’ve ever worked on. It’s an eCommerce website selling lingerie, bras, panties, swimwear, club clothing and costumes. The website is live as of today, but orders won’t be able to be placed until Monday, January 2, 2012.

Features include:

LemonStand eCommerce Platform

Completely customized shopping cart, graphics and menus.

Product image magnification

Customized “Product Options” and “Related Products”

Social Media integrated onto every page

Custom Header and Shopping Cart/Bag Style and Layout

Custom pages for: Category, Sub-Product, Category-All, and Product

I’m especially proud of this one after all the work that I put into it. Please come check it out.

We just launched a new website today: JaPaulScape.com. James Payne “JaPaul”, is the owner of a landscaping business in St Petersburg that specializes in landscape design, sod, lawn maintenance for residential and commercial clients. He has beautiful designs at affordable prices and also offers monthly contracts.

They’re more expensive than regular domains, starting at $80 per domain name, and can only be purchased from approved registrars. The higher cost comes from add-ons that are automatically built into them: automatic daily virus scanning and other security features that are built into them.

Most businesses aren’t interested in building an adult-themed website, but many companies are buying the relevant domain for their business to tie them up and avoid someone purchasing “yourcompany.xxx” and forwarding it to a porn site.

I’ve been brain storming with Jim Webb of The Webb Works Video Productions over the past few months. We’ve been discussing ways to cross-promote our business services. The Webb Works is a local full-service video production company focusing on business to business video productions. Jim has more than 30 years of professional experience, most of that time as a photojournalist for local news. He’s used to shooting video, editing it together and producing a story the same day. I’ve never met anyone in the video business as fast and professional as Jim Webb.

Here’s a video that we did together for my business:

Online video is the most efficient and effective way of getting your message across. However, most businesses believe that having a professional video made is out of their budget and out of reach. They try to cut corners by shooting it themselves and having their nephew edit something together to put online. What results would you expect when an amateur tries to perform your professional service? How many times has someone brought you a mess to fix and what do you tell them?

Professional video, done right, is expensiveif you have to cover the full cost of a production. The service we’re offering would normally cost $1,000/day or $650/half-day. After putting our heads together, we’ve come up with a way to offer you a professional video production at an affordable price. It boils down to economy of scale: Setting up one time and having four or more people take advantage of the offer in a day.

Until the end of December 2011, when four or more people are scheduled for one day, they will receive:

1 hour of production time in studio

Up to 2 minutes of completed video

Professional cameras, sound and lighting

Up to 2 people, waist-up video shoot

Your logo on video

Your contact information in the video

Delivery of completed video in 2 business days

Cost of basic package: $150

Additional services available at an extra charge include:

Teleprompter

Green screen

Editing

Makeup Artist

Graphics

Shooting at your location

Multiple cameras

This offer is perfect for: commercials, video for your website, recording your “elevator speech”, promotional videos, personal holiday greetings to customers or loved ones across the country or the world.

With the release of Google+ Pages for Business and the end of the year coming, I’ve been going through my customers’ online listings at all the search engines and directories. This includes the big search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing), top-level providers (InfoGroup, Localeze and Acxiom), smaller directories and review sites (Yelp, hotfrog, Manta, etc.), and local area directories (Go Local Tampa Bay, TBO Directory, etc.). I’m making sure that all the listings are claimed and that information is up to date, consistent and accurate.

It’s a big task, even for a professional like me, and I thought, “This is the perfect year-end/holiday service for businesses.”

Save yourself some time and frustration. If you haven’t reviewed your local internet presence, or if you haven’t even claimed all of your online listings, let me do it for you. The details are here:

What’s really exciting for me is the built-in functionality for Local Search Marketing. When you create a Page, you choose whether you’re making the page for a Local Business or Place, a Product or Brand, a Company/Institution/Organization, Arts/Entertainment/Sports, or Other. If you select a Local Business/Place the form asks for the phone number and looks for the business information and auto-fills the information for that location if its available.

When you’re done creating the page, your Google+ identity is switched over so that you’re acting as the Page. You can switch back to your own profile at any time. When you’re logged in as the Page, any actions you make are shown as coming from the page: posts, pictures, videos, updates, etc.

The functionality is similar to Facebook Pages, but they’re making a real effort to integrate the Google suite of products. I’ve already noticed that if you add a link to a Picasa album (Google’s photo album product) the images in the album are displayed in an album view.

Another cool feature is the ability to “Start a hangout”, a video conference that anyone in your circles can join, a great tool for virtual meetings with customers or webinars.

They’ve already announced that multi-admin support, ownership transfer and analytics are on their way and I can’t wait to see that functionality included.